All right, the big news today is that we finally have the official word from our contacts at Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment: Star Trek Beyond will arrive on Blu-ray Combo, Blu-ray 3D Combo, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD formats on 11/1, with the Digital HD release due on 10/4. There will also be Star Trek Trilogy Collection on Blu-ray, as well as a number of retail exclusive SKUs (see here, here, here, and here). Audio on the Blu-ray and 4K versions will be English Dolby Atmos. Extras on the Blu-ray versions will include deleted scenes, a gag reel, and 9 behind-the-scenes featurettes (Beyond the Darkness, Enterprise Takedown, Divided and Conquered, A Warped Sense of Revenge, Trekking in the Desert, Exploring Strange New Worlds, New Life, New Civilizations, To Live Long and Prosper, and For Leonard and Anton). You can see the final cover artwork to the left and below. [Read on here…]

Afternoon, folks. Hope you had a fine weekend. I’m been busy working on new Blu-ray and 4K reviews, the first of which I’m pleased to offer you now...

Here are my thoughts on Universal’s new Frankenstein: Complete Legacy Collection and The Wolf Man: Complete Legacy Collection, which streeted last week and are now available. Both are good upgrades of the previous DVD box sets of the same name, but the value proposition for each is a little complicated. I should note that in order to review these sets, I had to purchase them at my own expense. Universal chose not to make them available for review. Meanwhile, I’m working on additional reviews for posting later and tomorrow, so stay tuned for those. [Read on here…]

Warner Bros Home Entertainment has just set a new Mad Max High Octane Collection for Blu-ray and DVD release on 12/6 (SRP $79.99 and $54.97). Both will include Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), plus 5 hours of bonus content and the Mad Max: Fury Road “Black & Chrome” Edition. The Blu-ray set will also include a 4K Ultra HD and UV Digital Copy versions of Mad Max: Fury Road. You’ll also get a new George Miller Introduction to the Mad Max Fury Road: Black and Chrome Edition, the new Road War featurette (with George Miller, Terry Hayes and Mel Gibson), and the previous Madness of Max (1979) documentary.

Mad Max: Fury Road and the Mad Max: Fury Road “Black & Chrome” Edition will also be released as a Blu-ray 2-pack on 12/6 (SRP $29.98) with the previous extras as well as the new George Miller introduction. [Read on here…]

Just a quick update for you today, as we’re working on new Blu-ray and 4K UHD reviews for you...

First up, Scream Factory has just announced the list of extras you’ll find on their 2-disc The Exorcist III: Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, which streets on 10/25. Disc One will include The Exorcist III: Theatrical Cut via new 2K IP scan, with a vintage featurette, vintage interviews, a delete scene, alternate takes, bloopers, a deleted prologue, theatrical trailers, TV spots, and photo galleries. Disc Two will include Legion (the Original Director’s Cut) with all-new extras including an audio interview with writer/director William Peter Blatty and 5 featurettes (A “Wonderfull” Time, Signs of the Gemini, The Devil in the Details, Music for a Padded Cell, and All This Bleeding). You can see the cover artwork at right and below. [Read on here…]

The big news today is that Sony is bringing Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver back to theaters (on 10/16 and 10/19) for its 40th Anniversary, and will re-issue the film on Blu-ray in a new Taxi Driver: 40th Anniversary Edition that’s mastered from the film’s 4K restoration (which was supervised by Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Chapman). The 2-disc set, which streets on 11/8, will include much legacy bonus material along with a new 40-minute Q&A with Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster and more, recorded live at the Beacon Theatre in New York City at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

The specific list of extras includes: Disc One – Taxi Driver Q&A, Interactive Script to Screen, original 1986 commentary with Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader (recorded by The Criterion Collection), additional commentaries by Schrader and by Professor Robert Kolker, 6 featurettes (Martin Scorsese on Taxi Driver, Producing Taxi Driver, God’s Lonely Man, Taxi Driver Stories, Travis’ New York, and Travis’ New York Locations), and the film’s theatrical trailer; Disc Two – The Making of Taxi Driver documentary, Storyboard to Film Comparisons (with Scorsese introduction), and Animated Photo Galleries. You can see the cover artwork above left and below. [Read on here…]

All right, as many of you know, Thursday marks the official 50th Anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. Star Trek: The Original Series debuted on NBC TV way back on September 8, 1966.

As is probably true for many of you, Star Trek’s played an enormous role in my life. It was my first favorite TV show as a very young child, certainly my first exposure to science fiction of any kind, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that my moral compass – the very principles I believe in (a more optimistic future, the idea that we’re stronger working together, that exploration is one of the most noble things Humanity can do, that it’s our differences that make us greater, etc) – all come from classic Star Trek. The series certainly fostered my curious nature and lifelong interests in science, astronomy, writing, and spaceflight technology. Over the past decade, my love of the franchise led to the discovery of Patrick O’Brian’s “Aubrey-Maturin” series of historical novels, which begin with Master and Commander (upon which the 2003 Russell Crowe film was based) – they’re essentially Star Trek stories set in the 19th Century. [Read on here…]

About Bill Hunt

Bill Hunt is the Editor in Chief of The Digital Bits, and the co-author (with Todd Doogan) of the Amazon Top 50 selling book The Digital Bits: Insiders Guide to DVD. Hunt founded The Bits in 1997, in the early days of the DVD format,…